Spend time on family and friends

Published 6:46 pm, Friday, December 13, 2013

The viral YouTube videos are everywhere: people piled on top of each other as if they were monkeys in a zoo battling over food at feeding time. You would assume these scenes would occur at the time of a horrific accident. No, these have happened in lines at your local Target, Walmart and Kohl's this Holiday shopping season, making people forget about what this time of year is truly about.

The day following Thanksgiving is known worldwide as "Black Friday," a day on which morals and logic seem to be tossed aside. The deals of half off your favorite winter clothing brand, or the TV that is marked down to next to nothing becomes incredibly enticing for some.

So enticing that some customers abandon the family dinner table to get in a line with thousands of people that lasts into the wee hours of the morning. Seems kind of miserable to me.

But surely it is understandable to look for a good deal. Heck, my own mother hoards coupons like no other. But this past November 30th, humanity showed us something we want to never see.

In Claypool, Va., two men engaged in a knife fight over a parking space that resulted in one man stabbing the other to the bone.

In Passaic, N.J., a man was pepper-sprayed after a dispute with a Wal-Mart manager over a television.

Employees at a Target in Covington, Wash., were frantically looking for the door when a riot started. #WalMartfights became a trend on twitter. Disgusting. A Wal-Mart executive told ABC that this was the safest Black Friday in years, and that Wal-Mart was happy with its safety measures. Seriously?

As the weeks go by, Thanksgiving and the days after it wane in our minds. But what approaches is the biggest "shopping" holiday of the year.

The Christmas season is my favorite time of the year, but also the most stressful for some. Materialistic wishes rise to extreme levels when seemingly every child, teenager and even adult asks for their wildest wishes in the form of an expensive iPad, TV or car. The pressure is on for you to get your loved ones exactly what they want on the big day. For some, just being able to afford gifts for their family is enough worry to put them over the edge.

It is a constant stress for single parents and impoverished families to meet all the wants of their children and loved ones. It is a stress that, unfortunately, takes away from the true goodness of the Holiday Season. So ultimately, it would make sense for people to get the deals as soon as they can to save on those gifts that they so desperately need. But do they really desperately need them? To be honest, the answer is no.

After brawling over that iPod or video game in a crowded Target at 4 a.m., those wonderful gifts we're giving our loved ones lose their value. The materialistic value of an item is something that falls far short of the value of time spent with others.

People should be spending time at home with the ones they love, realizing that family and friends are the true gifts in your life. Not the ones you got for 75 percent off at the retail store.

So go ice-skating with your friends and family Play two-hand touch football with your buddies on the local elementary school field. Sit by the fire and turn on that movie you watch every year with your family.

The days between Thanksgiving and New Year's come around every year, so the moments may seem plenty. But in reality, there aren't enough of those moments. As Ferris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop to look around once and a while you could miss it."

So, don't stress about the expensive gifts and spending your December days in a crowded retail or department store. Draw a picture or make a sculpture out of clay, include a picture, write a letter. Go out and spend time, because really that's the most important thing we can spend.